Changes

I have come a long way. Still a long way to go.

Posted on May 16, 2018

So, it has been a while since I have actively written stuff. I used to have regular posts on this website but in the past one year, priorities have changed and my goals have changed too. Hence there has been a makeover on this website on the topics of my articles and also a little change to the layout. Biggest change perhaps is the title. It reads “vp’s café”. What’s that? Is it cheesy? Well yeah, it damn well is.

Change is the only constant.

I know, an over-used quote. But I just don’t care

I have been experimenting a lot in the past one year. Tried things that I have never done before or wasn’t confident of doing before like cooking and podcasting! I now have a what I consider to be successful podcast called Writer & Geek Show and I am fuuuucking proud if it! Here we are, the super intelligent (pretend) hosts:

You can see that I love Coffee, a new found love. Never been a beverage drinker (I mean coffee and tea and stuff, not beer and other stuff)

Coffee wasn’t an accident, again thanks to my dearest friend Renjith, as with other things, he introduced me to good coffee. By the way, speaking of him, he is the only “Best” friend I have and our friendship is almost 13 years old now. It’s been long since we left college. That doesn’t make me feel old though, good luck with trying to make me

Why did I mention that? Because I read somewhere that if a friendship goes beyond 7 years then there is a good chance it lasts forever. We are almost twice that time.

Moving on…

So, coffee. I love coffee so much and love coffee shops a lot too. Here is what I do on weekends. I pick up my laptop, head to a coffee shop, spend hours sitting and researching some podcast topic, write show notes all the while listening to Jazz that they play. Lovely ain’t it? Something like this.

I look forward to my coffee time. I like my “me” time. I have always loved that. When I was a kid, I used my “me” time to look at stars and think about astronomy and space travel. Now I use that “me” time to my creative pursuits.

Spending time in coffee shops made me curious about coffee brewing and other stuff related to coffee. So much interested that I started making coffee! I got myself a French Press. I love it even though people might think it isn’t the best choice for coffee. But it can make this, so I don’t care:

So, I started making coffee. I love the process, the patience and the precision that makes a good cup of coffee. I got some awesome ground coffee from Coffee Mechanics and Blue Tokai and make my own coffee every single day when I am not headed to the coffee shop. I can experiment with a different kind of coffee, cold, hot, frappe, mocha, macchiato, everything!

The whole idea of making things fascinates me. Especially food. A few months back I was on Keto diet and was cooking my own meals. I absolutely loved doing that. You can be creative, not stick to rules and have absolutely no limit on what you can make.

One moment…

So what’s the point? Why am I rambling on and on about coffee and other trivial things? Let’s come to that.

So about making things, I get the exact same feeling I get while recording a podcast episode. There are many people who say podcasting has to be done this way or that way, but we never stuck to any of those rules, to be frank. All we did was stick to the schedule and made sure we just enjoy the whole process. I think more than anything sticking on to your commitment and persevering is the only way to be successful in anything.

For me, that thing seems like doing the podcast. I say “seems like” and you might feel that I am not confident. It is not about confidence. When it comes to podcasting, I am confident. But I said that because your interests might change over time. No one says that you should stick to something for rest of your life. You have all rights to re-evaluate your “thing”. But once you find it, you’d want to stick to it for some time. You’ll know when you find it.

Many of us haven’t found it yet, I used to feel the same way too. I never knew how to find my “thing”. The solution is to keep trying things. Experiment. You may end up doing many different things and you may end up stop doing those things till you find yourself doing something you want to do for a foreseeable future.

I say that passion is something you follow even when odds aren’t in your favour. Something that you persevere.

For me, doing this podcast consistently for a year was a big commitment. There were days where I have felt like quitting, felt like there was no point to all this. One good thing about doing the podcast was that I had my brother involved in this as well. In this way we were able to keep a check on each other and push whenever needed, just in case one feels a bit lazy.

Initially as with everything else, no one notices your work, but as you keep doing what you do consistently, people start recognising you. Slowly you get pulled into a community. For our podcasting, we have formed a small but growing community within the city and we keep sharing ideas around podcasting.

All this motivates us to keep working hard on what we do. So, this year has been great so far. It took me over 30 years to find something that I feel will stay with me for a long time, but I think this is the right time too. I am at a stage in my life where I am able to make a distinction between the things that are useful and productive vs the things that produce no output.

Even when I am tempted to make an argument on certain things to certain people, I do not mind losing it if I find that it is not going to do any good to either of us. I see that as a sign of growth and maturity. Slowly I am getting there.

I’m in repair. I’m not together but I’m getting there.- John Mayer (In Repair, Continuum)

In addition to all this, I am also repurposing the objective of this blog as well. I thought I might make this my programming blog. While I will still continue to post about programming stuff, my life is much more than programming now. So I will share from other areas as well and this would be more of a blog revolving around my lifestyle, the things I do and the things I learn.

Like with the podcast, my goal is to be consistent with the content on this blog as well. Who knows, someone might find it useful. Until next time, have a good time!

I am a podcaster, software engineer, blogger and coffee lover as you can see from my Instagram. This is my blog where I post stuff related to web technologies, podcasting and life in general. I co-host a podcast at Writer & Geek Show and I write some articles about life. More about me here.

Vishnu Padmanabhan

I enjoy living. I try to see positivity in everything. Sarcastic most of the time and researching for my podcast the rest. Love music and cannot live without it, did I say I love food?

This blog, its content and opinions are my own and does not reflect the opinions of my employer.